Wow Dan, that sounds like a riveting blog post, please let me read it immediately. You’re probably not thinking that are you? You were hoping for something like “How To Find A Top Selling Private Label Product In Six Minutes” or “Source Your Online Arbitrage At These Stores Because No One Else Does” weren’t you?

Sorry to disappoint you. But that’s next month’s blog posts. Maybe.

What I wanted to talk you through today is some quick tips to organize your Amazon business and work more efficiently.

If like me you started or still run your Amazon business alongside other commitments like a full-time job, family etc. it can be tricky to get everything done that you need each day or week.

What happens then is you become frustrated about not moving forward quickly enough and you start to resent things that you feel are getting in your way (an evening out with your partner for example when you feel that you should be working).

This can have the effect of making you less effective, as you will be having to deal with the emotions that go with frustration alongside the tasks that you need to do.

Boring Task Solution

I don’t mean spending 30 minutes creating a to-do list that you never finish and just ends up getting longer and longer because the items you don’t really enjoy doing just keep getting put off. When my to-do list got onto the third page of A4 (yes some people still write on paper) I realized that it wasn’t working for me.

What does work for me is this:

Make a list of regular tasks that need doing. This can include things like:

– Dealing with unfulfillable inventory

– Making reimbursement claims with Amazon to ensure they are paying you for stock that they have lost or damaged

– Bookkeeping

These are the type of tasks that always get shoved to the bottom of a to-do list. They are not sexy, they are not fun.

Work out how frequently they need doing and put them in an online calendar that will remind you when they are due. Google has a decent free one as part of your Google account if you have on.

So you might schedule unfulfillable inventory for the same time every Wednesday. Bookkeeping the 5th of each month, repricing every two days at the same time.

Then when you get the reminder – actually do the task. No postponing, no leaving until later. Get it done and move on.

What I found when I did this was that I got them done faster, which removed blockages in my business workflow and allowed me to increase time on things which I considered added more value, in particular product sourcing.

Value Added Solution

Our Amazon business is mainly Online Arbitrage (we have non – Amazon businesses as well). So the area that I could add more value to my Amazon business was the sourcing and buying of online arbitrage products to sell on Amazon. Better sourcing means more profit.

There will be equivalent “value-added” activities if you are doing private label, wholesale or handmade products.

Before I started using Virtual Assistants for my product sourcing I created a sourcing schedule, so that I knew each day which stores I was going to analyze for online arbitrage opportunities. This is for sourcing using software and for manually sourcing.

It’s not something I’d spend too long putting together, but it is certainly a lot more effective than randomly picking a store, spending a few minutes looking at products and moving on to the next one that pops into your head.

Once you get into the flow of this you will start to identify which stores work well for you sourcing wise, and which rarely have anything that will be profitable. Make a list of the good stores and stop analyzing the others. Just doing this one thing can significantly improve the efficiency of the time you have to product source.

Another tip is yourself targets for how much you want to spend on inventory in an hour can also help you focus to make the most of your limited time.

I hope that’s given you some food for thought, whether you are currently a part-time seller or full time online. Feel free to share any ideas or suggestions you think would help in the comments below.

Happy sourcing!

Biography: Dan Ashton is an experienced Amazon seller and entrepreneur. Due to the success of his online businesses over the past two years, Dan has moved from Liverpool, UK to the beautiful Mediterranean island of Mallorca, where he continues to work to build and expand them further. Dan shares his experiences and helps others to establish their financial freedom via his website www.danashton.co.